I think, more than anything I do, I get concerned about the audiobooks, and made happy when they (and I) get recognised. They're hard work; I'm very aware that I'm not a professional reader-of-books-aloud; and, most of all, they're personal. If you don't like a book I've written I won't take it personally: I'm not the story, after all. But if you don't like a recording of me reading something... well, it was me sitting in that studio for three days reading aloud to a director and engineer in another room, for an imaginary audience, and yes, it's personal.

Why didn’t anyone else see this coming? Why am I the only one to realize that Neil is actually groaning, tortured, half-mad folk-rock poet Leonard Cohen, who maintains his astonishing youth and beauty by feasting on the pineal glands of innocent women?!

(Strangely, as I write this, I'm sitting on the sofa with Holly watching Lou Reed introduce Leonard Cohen at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, as we clear out unwatched stuff on the TIVO).

Excuse me. I must pause to nibble a pineal gland.

I was wondering if you'd seen any of the coverage (boingboing, Ebert, QuestionCopyright) about Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues?

On the one hand, I think an artist using another artist's work as the basis of a movie should get permission/compensate that person. On the other hand, the creator in this case has been dead for twenty years, and forgotten for more. Meanwhile Nina is arguably generating value for the corporations that currently own the rights.

I also thought it was interesting that she's come to the conclusion that physical distribution is more likely *limit* the audience that can view her work.

It's a bitch. The film looks amazing from the description and the online bits I've seen. Music rights clearance issues are always a bitch. (Dave McKean ran into something similar with the Django music on The Week Before, which is why Keanoshow is only legitimately available outside the US.) I love Nina Paley's work, love the Ramayana, and would very much like to be able to see this.

Now that you have a Wii, will you be playing the Coraline Wii game? Or would that be incredibly boring for you since you created the world it is set in?

The Coraline Wii is a mystery to me. (It might be less of a mystery if I asked anyone at Laika about it, mind you.) Then again, I seem only to be using the Wii as an exercisey fitness thingummy at present. Weight is dropping, waistline shrinking, and scores are going up for the most part, I'm loving the yoga and the balance stuff, and my trainer was impressed yesterday at stuff I seem to be able to do I couldn't do before, like snowshoe up the side of a hill without getting out of breath. (My first time in snowshoes. Interesting things. I thought they'd look more like tennis racquets.)